Geocaching ROCKS!!!

After more than a year of "investigation", Steve and I finally took the plunge yesterday and went Geocaching. For anyone who doesn't know this term, it's like an elaborate game of "Hide and Seek", using your GPS, played out all over the world.

The first thing I did was to sign up with a geocaching web site. I get an e-mail from this organization once a week listing "caches" all over the world. Since we were headed to Monroe, NC yesterday for some errands, I plugged Monroe into the geocache search engine and got pages and pages of "caches" in the area.

Once we chose our area, I chose four different locations to search for "finds". I printed the pages. (I could have just put the co-ordinates into the GPS, but I was afraid I'd get the locations confused.) We took off for Monroe armed with THREE GPS units. (Go figure, two people and three GPS's...hahaha)

Anyway, we put the coordinates in Steve's GPS in the car and got to the area of the hidden cache. Then he took his handheld and I took mine and we plugged the coordinates in them and left the car to look. Some of the hidden caches are very very easy to find and some take a bit more investigation. All of the hidden caches have paper inside for the "seekers" to sign in that they found the item. People are encouraged to leave something in the caches as well, but we had nothing with us to leave except our signatures. Some folks just leave a penny or other coin. One of the caches we found had a large zip-lock bag inside with all kinds of stuff in it. There were pencils, pens, golf balls, small toys and lots of interesting stuff. One had a business card from a police officer from another area of NC.

In the end we wound up finding three of the four items we were looking for. At the one we didn't find, we were run off by "muggles" (people who are not involved with the game and don't know what's going on). We were tromping around in their front yard and they pulled up into the driveway to ask what we were doing. We pretty much just appologized and left.....tails between our legs!!!

Of the three we found, one was in a shopping center parking lot, one was in the mulch in front of a historic house in the middle of downtown Monroe and for the other one, we had to hike about 1/4 to 1/2 mile into the woods and find an old metal ammo box that was hidden underneath some fallen trees. I think I can safely say Steve and I are now BOTH hooked on geocaching. It is nice for us to each have our own hand-held GPS because between the two of them we can get really really close to the items.

We're thinking about printing some out for our trip to Gatlinburg and anyone who wants to go "hunting" with us is invited. This new hobby got us out of the house and walking / moving around, as well as finding some new areas we've never been to before.

At this point I'd like to HIGHLY recommend this hobby to anyone with a GPS. From the research I've done, I know there is a large concentration of "cachers" in the Lancaster area, as well as all over SC and NC. They hold "meets" so you can meet others who love the hobby and at these meetings, they usually hand out some not-previously-disclosed caches in the area and people take off like the start of the Indy 500 to be the first to find any given "hide".

I'll keep you all posted on our adventures. I think we're going to work on a few in Lancaster in the upcoming weeks. There is also a state-wide geocache in South Carolina where participants have to find at least one "hide" in each county in the state. I'm positive we're not up to that level yet, but we're excited to get out and find some "stuff".......

Let us know if you decide to try your hand at this. I'm sure you'll like it if you try it.

Love to all.....